Album Reviews: Tim Buckley - Venice Mating Call, Greetings from West Hollywood, The Dream Belongs to Me, Sefronia, Look at the Fool

If
you know of singer Tim Buckley only as Jeff Buckley’s father—or don’t know him
at all—you’re in for a major treat. Where to start? Probably with the first
four of the nine studio albums he issued before succumbing to a heroin/morphine
overdose in 1975 at age 28. After that, you’ll likely want to move on to the
rest of his impressive catalog, which includes lots of posthumous releases. The
latest of those include remasters of albums that have been available for some
time as well as some fantastic previously unavailable material. Let’s take a
look:

Venice Mating Call and Greetings from West Hollywood. These two albums, whose must-hear
contents are all previously unreleased, were recorded in September 1969 at the
Troubadour in L.A. Greetings from West
Hollywood, which is available in the States on LP and in the UK on CD,
contains nine tracks; Venice Mating Call,
a double CD package that includes excellent extensive liner notes by co-producer
Pat Thomas, offers two of the same performances, plus different versions of the
other seven tracks on Greetings, and
four additional tunes. Both albums repeat many of the titles that appear on 1994’s
Live at the Troubadour 1969.

Buying
either—much less both—of the new records might seem unnecessary if you already
own the earlier Troubadour CD, but that’s not the case. One reason is that most
of the performances are different—sometimes very different—on Venice, Hollywood, and Troubadour.Moreover, the new albums add four tunes
that don’t appear onthe earlier
record. True, you can find a live
reading of one of them—the sublime “Buzzin’ Fly”—on the essential Dream Letter: Live in London 1968; but “Anonymous
Proposition” and “Lorca” (both of which surface on the 1970 studio album named
for the latter song) are difficult or impossible to locate elsewhere in live
versions; and “(I Wanna) Testify” isn’t even available on studio LPs.

Still,
you may be asking yourself why anyone needs two or three live versions of a
song from Buckley, even if they’re significantly different. But if that’s what
you’re wondering, you almost certainly haven’t heard him work his magic. He was
one of the most gifted and inventive artists of the entire rock era. His vocal
range and improvisations can take your breath away and his best performances—which
meld folk, jazz, blues, and psychedelia—are astonishingly good. (Trust me, I’m
not throwing these superlatives around lightly here.) Moody tone poems like
“Blue Melody,” “Strange Feelin’,” and “Chase the Blues Away” are unforgettable,
as is the expansive “Gypsy Woman,” one of the most erotic songs ever recorded.
And then there’s “Buzzin’ Fly,” which surely ranks among the most beautiful
love songs of all time. Once you’ve heard these numbers, you’ll likely be
hungry for all the versions you can find. This is music for the ages.

The Dream Belongs to Me. This recently reissued album,
which first appeared around the turn of the century, proves slightly less
consistent than Venice Mating Call
and Greetings from West Hollywood but
also ranks as a must-buy. It includes 14 well-recorded, previously unreleased
recordings, among them a few (“Falling Timber” and the title cut) that had been
unknown. Six tracks come from 1968 and another eight from the 1973 sessions
that led to Buckley’s Sefronia album. Highlights abound, including a
long, dreamy reading of “Sing a Song for You” that outshines the one on Happy
Sad, plus versions of Blue Afternoon’s “Happy Time,” Happy Sad’s
“Buzzin’ Fly,” and Starsailor’s “Song to the Siren.” From 1973 comes
such raunchier material as “Honey Man” and “Stone in Love.” In my view, a few
of the tracks from this latter year are subpar, but overall, this album is
terrific.

Sefronia and Look at the Fool. These albums, which originally appeared in
late 1973 and late 1974, respectively, have just been remastered and packaged
with booklets that include lyrics and new annotation. The former disc is
notable for covers of Fred Neil’s “Dolphins” and Tom Waits’s “Martha,” while
the latter consists solely of erotically tinged funk originals, a few cowritten
with longtime Buckley collaborator Larry Beckett.

These
albums—the last ones released by the singer during his lifetime—both garnered
poor reviews at the time of their release. Like Dylan’s Self-Portrait,
though, they may be due for reassessment. Clearly, Buckley was in decline and
floundering when he made this music. But there are nevertheless satisfying
moments on both albums and even the lesser efforts are worth hearing. This is
probably nobody’s favorite Buckley period, but the instrumentation is great and
his elastic multi-octave voice remains a marvel to the end.

Note: Sefronia, Look at the Fool, and The
Dream Belongs to Me are available on CD
on the Manifesto label in the U.S. and on the Demon Music Group’s Edsel label
in the U.K. Manifesto also offers Venice Mating Call on CD and Greetings from West Hollywood on LP while Edsel offers both those albums on CD.

Jeff Burger (byjeffburger.com), a longtime magazine editor, has written about music, politics, and popular culture for more than 75 periodicals. His books include Dylan on Dylan: Interviews and Encounters, Lennon on Lennon: Conversations with John Lennon, Springsteen on Springsteen: Interviews, Speeches…